One of the first things they told us when we first found out that William had type 1 diabetes was that we needed to keep him on a regular schedule. You learn really fast that diabetes has a mind of it's own and that you never get the same result twice. I guess the goal is to try and get yourself in a window that allows you to function with the lowest A1C that is safe. No matter what you do you will never find the secret answer that gets to the promised land of perfect control. You need to find every small advantage that you can and when you put them all together you find a place where you can live with some consistency.
William is on a schedule that works for him. He gets up in the morning and has breakfast around 7:00 am. He then goes to school where they check him at 10:00 am and give him a snack. He is checked at 11:30 am for lunch. He is checked again at 2:00 pm and given a snack and one extra check before gym if it happens to be a gym day. William gets on the bus and goes to daycare where they check him at 4:00 pm. I pick him up from daycare and we go home where I make dinner and check him again about 5:30 pm. The next check isn't until 8:00 pm when be get his snack before bed. One more check at 11:00 pm to see where he is before I go to bed and one more at 2:00 am for assurance that he will make it through the night. It seems to work with William. That is right nine times a day he gets his finger poked and he never complains for a moment. Talk about brave and strong.
Let me talk a little bit about why I chose some of the points that I did. Breakfast is kind of a no brainer but some of the others have real reasons. The 10:00 am check and snack is three hours after breakfast. It give me a good idea of how his breakfast ratio is and is after his insulin on board and carbs are all gone. This allows the pump to make a better correction dose calculation because nothing should be changing. This also gives him some carbs to keep in his system. The 2:00 pm check is for the same reason but is at 2:00 pm to try and match up with his school schedule. The 4:00 pm check just allows us to see how school affected him that day. Some days there is more activity with three recesses or gym so he might be lower than usual or it might have rained so no recess and he might be higher. 5:30pm is before dinner. The 8:00 pm check is about three hours after dinner so it fits into the same reasoning as above. the 11:00 pm check is three hours after the 8:00 pm check and snack. I get a real idea of where he is at with no carbs or insulin on board. The 2:00 am check is there because William has a huge twilight phenomena. From 8:00 pm until 12:00 am he get twice as much basal insulin as he does for the rest of the day. It drops a little at 12:00 am but at 2:00 am the basal rate drops really low. My reasoning here is if his number is good at 2:00 am we should be safe for the rest of the night since the basal rate is lower. It seems to work well for his case.
This is the life of a diabetic or parent of a diabetic. You think about numbers all of the time. How can you make them better without fear of putting him at risk of lows. You always look for a new trick or some other advice that can get you closer to normal and keep the A1C as low as possible. I hope this information helps someone that is confused see how someone else has done it and give them a little light in the darkness.
Shinning a light for you,
His Loving Dad
William is on a schedule that works for him. He gets up in the morning and has breakfast around 7:00 am. He then goes to school where they check him at 10:00 am and give him a snack. He is checked at 11:30 am for lunch. He is checked again at 2:00 pm and given a snack and one extra check before gym if it happens to be a gym day. William gets on the bus and goes to daycare where they check him at 4:00 pm. I pick him up from daycare and we go home where I make dinner and check him again about 5:30 pm. The next check isn't until 8:00 pm when be get his snack before bed. One more check at 11:00 pm to see where he is before I go to bed and one more at 2:00 am for assurance that he will make it through the night. It seems to work with William. That is right nine times a day he gets his finger poked and he never complains for a moment. Talk about brave and strong.
Let me talk a little bit about why I chose some of the points that I did. Breakfast is kind of a no brainer but some of the others have real reasons. The 10:00 am check and snack is three hours after breakfast. It give me a good idea of how his breakfast ratio is and is after his insulin on board and carbs are all gone. This allows the pump to make a better correction dose calculation because nothing should be changing. This also gives him some carbs to keep in his system. The 2:00 pm check is for the same reason but is at 2:00 pm to try and match up with his school schedule. The 4:00 pm check just allows us to see how school affected him that day. Some days there is more activity with three recesses or gym so he might be lower than usual or it might have rained so no recess and he might be higher. 5:30pm is before dinner. The 8:00 pm check is about three hours after dinner so it fits into the same reasoning as above. the 11:00 pm check is three hours after the 8:00 pm check and snack. I get a real idea of where he is at with no carbs or insulin on board. The 2:00 am check is there because William has a huge twilight phenomena. From 8:00 pm until 12:00 am he get twice as much basal insulin as he does for the rest of the day. It drops a little at 12:00 am but at 2:00 am the basal rate drops really low. My reasoning here is if his number is good at 2:00 am we should be safe for the rest of the night since the basal rate is lower. It seems to work well for his case.
This is the life of a diabetic or parent of a diabetic. You think about numbers all of the time. How can you make them better without fear of putting him at risk of lows. You always look for a new trick or some other advice that can get you closer to normal and keep the A1C as low as possible. I hope this information helps someone that is confused see how someone else has done it and give them a little light in the darkness.
Shinning a light for you,
His Loving Dad
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